1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to virtual machines, and more particularly to communication between virtual machines.
2. Description of the Background Art
Virtual machines in the art of computer science, in general, are well known. Briefly, a virtual machine is a software implementation of computer hardware and executes programs like a physical machine. Virtualization allows several virtual machines to run on the same computer hardware. Each virtual machine is, in essence, a separate computer (albeit a virtual one) that has its own operating system, file system, and application programs that are separate from other virtual machines running on the same computer hardware. Because each virtual machine is essentially a separate computing environment, conventional inter-process communication techniques are not readily applicable to communications between different software components running on different virtual machines.